RSB Directors Seminar: Models and truth in phylogenomics

Models and truth in phylogenomics

How do you estimate a good phylogeny? Phylogenetic trees form the backbone of much of our understanding of evolution, so it's important we get them as right as possible. Many of us had hoped that the recent deluge of sequence data would help to resolve most of the difficult branches in the tree of life, but this has rarely been the case. Debates rage on, fuelled by the observation that small changes in models or data often lead to dramatically different phylogenetic conclusions. In this talk, I'll introduce a number of attempts we've made recently to improve phylogenetic inference, as well as our plans for the future.